Register soon. And I am pleased to say that there are a number of you that are interested, but we have until June 15th to register and then our unused reservations will be open to the public.
This is a bit pricey but well worth it. Almost all our food is included except on the trail and the AMC’s breakfasts and dinners are plentiful.
The “Highlands” is a really nice lodge by AMC standards. There is also an open area with a fireplace where people can congregate- then to add,a cheese and wine before dinner.
A note on your reservation. The number is 1-603-249-7117. When you make your reservation you need to reserve it under the LEXINGTON HIKING GROUP, for Fri Aug19- Sun Aug21st.

Rita

For any scouts who are not going on the white water rafting trip over Memorial Day weekend,  here is an opportunity to knock off one of those 5 mile hikes,  and to earn a nifty piece of hardware for you uniform,  (and maybe even learn a little local history)

Bedford Trail Historical Hike will take place on Sunday May 30th.   Pls see attached permission form for details  and get it back to me with payment by 5/24

Thx

John W

I have gotten a gauge of the level of interest in the Philmont 2012 trip.  It looks like we may only have enough scouts for a single crew (8 scouts and 2 adults).  If enough scouts show interest, we might be able to send two crews.  It is time to commit.

Time table for Philmont sign-ups:

Thur Feb 3 8:00pm – Parent informational meeting
Thur Feb 17 – $100 non-refundable deposits (payable to Troop 160) are due.  Bring to Troop meeting or mail to Jeff Shorter (address in Troop guide).

Notes:
1) if we have more scouts than can go on the trip, older scouts who have turned in the $100 deposit will have priority
2) if we have more scouts than can go, they will be selected by the order in which the deposits are recieved.
3) The scoutmaster will review the list and must approve of all scouts.

Jeff Shorter
Philmont coordinator

Troop 160 has been given two crew spots for June 27, 2012 at the Philmont Scout Ranch.  Information about Philmont can be found at http://www.philmontscoutranch.org/.

The adventure is the 12-day hike through New Mexico.  The age requirements are 14 years old or 13 and finished 8th grade at the time of the hike.  I have not worked out a budget, but it could cost in the range of $1300 – $1800 depending on the pre-activities and airfare.  There is scholarship money available from different sources.

The planning will occur over the next year and a half.  The first step is to find out who is interested.  My first email did not get a lot of interest.

Please email me if you (or your scout) is interested with the below info.

Age limit: 14 years old or finished 8th grade
min wt: 100 pounds

Scouts interested:
Scout First and last name
Rank
age on June 27, 2012
grade finished on June 27, 2012
Parent full name
email address
phone number

Adults interested:
Full Name
Scout First and last name
Is scout interested in going
email address
phone number
Thanks,
Jeff

Click her to view the photos

Steve Schaffner

Parents of Scouts who are going on the White Mountains hike may wonder exactly how the food is being handled.  The trip coordinator covered most of this in a posting you can review at:

http://www.troop160lexington.com/home/2009/10/08/white-mountains-campout/

Breakfast on Sunday and Monday will be provided as will a trail lunch on Sunday.  The Scout is responsible for his own lunch on Saturday.  For those returning on Monday in the early afternoon, we may stop for lunch along the way so allow a little pocket money for that.

Saturday and Sunday supper will be cooked by the patrols.  That means that the patrol plans the meals for their group, a grubmaster is appointed, and the grubmaster buys the food.  The food allowance for supper is $4 per Scout per supper.  If a grubmaster has any questions about how many are in his patrol, contact me.

In one case, a last-minute cancellation means we ended up with a very small patrol and to get quantities right they may have to overspend a bit.

ALL PATROL FOOD COSTS WILL BE REIMBURSED so next week the grubmaster should come to the meeting prepared to present his bills.  This reconciliation is part of the learning process so I don’t want anybody to skip this step.  We do NOT expect the grubmaster’s parents to donate the food.

ELECTRONICS

As with all troop events, Scouts should leave the electronics at home.  That includes cell phones.  If a Scout needs to make a call for some reason, there will be adults with cell phones for emergencies although they, too, will be buried in packs or deep in pockets.  There will be enough to do that electronic games, MP3 players, and the like will not be needed for entertainment.

-Hank Manz

Our annual White Mountains camping trip over Columbus Day Weekend is only two weeks away!  This is a reminder that the response deadline for this trip is tonight.  Please bring your forms and payment to tonight’s troop meeting if you haven’t already done so.  It’s important that we know who is planning on participating, both scouts and adults, in order to properly plan for the trip.  After tonight, the registration fee increases.  Attached is the registration form.

Yours in scouting,
Charlie Marge

Some of the links embedded in the notes may be stale at this point.  But the one thing which has definitely changed is that Harvard has just completed a study which indicates that a considerable amount of the main culprit, bisphenol-A or BPA, passes into the human body even when only water is in the bottle and even when that water has been in the bottle for only a very short time.

http://www.troop160lexington.com/home/2007/10/31/a-scoutmaster-minute-on-plastic-water-bottles/

http://www.troop160lexington.com/home/2008/04/26/a-scoutmaster-minute-april-22-2008/

http://www.troop160lexington.com/home/2008/07/10/scoutmaster-minute-extra-july-2-2008/

So do two things.  If you buy a water bottle of any type, make sure it is BPA-free and then encourage your son to carry water in it instead of exotic beverages.  There are other things in plastic besides BPA which are probably not good for people and carrying around acidic beverages in plastic containers can’t be good in the long run.

Here are the links to the news story and to the press release from Harvard.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/health/19536287/detail.html

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2009-releases/bpa-chemical-plastics-leach-polycarbonate-drinking-bottles-humans.html

There is one note–while a #7 is an indication of polycarbonate material, it is not an indication that the bottle contains BPA.  Most BPA-free bottles contain a note of some sort to that effect, however.

E-mail Changes
====================

If you wish to make any e-mail changes, send a note to charles -at- hatvany -dot- com. Note that I have written the address so as to confuse those who would send us SPAM.  If you send a note, use the standard form of xxxx@yyy.com.

-Hank Manz